I want to congratulate on this wonderful holiday - Mother's Day to the whole country, all mothers, especially single mothers and mothers with many children, who, due to the existing social and cultural reality in Georgia, often face gender inequality problems. Therefore, more attention and assistance is needed from the state and the society in order to ensure better protection of the rights of single parents and children of large families.

As a number of researches have revealed, single mothers and their families belong to a high risk group in terms of poverty. The assessment of the socio-economic conditions of vulnerable families, carried out in 2016, revealed 4 379 single mothers. The country does not have specific social programs. Social assistance is not gender-sensitive and does not envisage the needs of single mothers. In addition, the legislation does not define who is considered a mother of many children, and as a result, such mothers remain beyond the Government's attention.

Although amendments were made to the Civil Code of Georgia in 2015 and the status of a single parent was defined, it is necessary to improve the legislative regulations relating to the status. In addition, persons with the status of single parents, as a separate group, do not get any social allowance.

The Public Defender's Office actively works with the Parliament and other relevant agencies in order to refine and regulate the rules of granting/abolishing the status of a single parent. I think that the fact that the status of a single parent is granted to a person only if no mother/father is indicated in the child's birth certificate does not reflect the reality. In addition, it is important to review the basis for abolishing the status of a single parent and improve it so that parents could easily enter legal and social relations for the child's best interests.

I again call on the Government to take effective steps to ratify the International Labour Organization’s Maternity Protection Convention No 183 and I once again congratulate all mothers on the 3 March holiday.